When We Rise
by Mimca
Summary: Sonic the Hedgehog has been saving the world for as long as he could remember, and six months after he defeated the Biolizard, he thought he had seen it all. But an alien invasion? That was a new one. (A Shadow the Hedgehog the Game AU where Shadow is a full Black Arm.)
1. Y-50 (Prologue)

When he walked out of the pod–or rather stumbled out–the sun was rising. The star tainted its coat of clouds of a pink hue, embracing of its many golden hands the bare land just waiting to be conquered. He remembered how often she described it, the both of them sitting in front of one of the Ark's windows and looking at the distant planet. And while it had warmed them up in that cold, gray colony, the description could not compare to the natural truth of it

_(one day, Shadow, we'll go on Earth together.)_

even though she could not see it anymore. It was the principle of the matter.

He was seldom aware of the trembling shadows coming towards him as one single being–_curious_, he thought dully, _how these humans lose their oh-so-precious individuality as soon as something threatens their cattle_. An unnerved laugh escaped him. And laughter turned into a sob; and sobbing turned into a scream, as the heap of emotions crashed down on him.

He _despised_ it. Despised how beautiful and yet how trivial it was for them. Despised that he was even here, while she could not, while she could never set eyes on the sky she had so long dreamed of.

He had tried to reach for her as if there had not been the pod's glass panel and Argus themselves between them; but she had not let him. At once, their mental connection was cut, as swiftly as with the sword. He had seen the bullet that pierced through her skin. Had seen her fall. Had seen _them_

_(Shadow.)_

fall.

It was safe to say "Shadow" had died the moment the soldiers shot that twelve-year-old girl. Though they may never live long enough to feel the ripples; they will give the burden to the next generation. And the generation after.

The Men-entity hurried closer. Someone clasped their fingers over his mouth, pushed inside. He heard himself die out, his voice tuned off like an old radio. As his mind slowly fell into darkness, his eyes remained until the ultimate moment absorbed in the contemplation of this summer morning sky. Humans better enjoy it while they could. The Day of Reckoning will come soon enough.

Waiting for a few generations was nothing to a Black Arm.


	2. H-24

"_Nuh-uh_! Not doing it!"

Charmy's transmitter carried to the best of its abilities Vector's groan of frustration.

It had started as a simple retrieval mission. The youngest of the Chaotix had thought it was his chance to prove he was the best asset of their detective agency. The mission had sounded too good to be true: of Prison Island, he forgot the Prison part, and remembered of the Island part the beach, the sand too hot to wash away in the foams, families telling him to _stop kicking everywhere, Charmy!_

But then, six months ago, Eggman had gone and bombed the place. Vector might have told him: while Prison Island was not known publicly, the consequences of its destruction were, just as obvious as the scar crossing the moon. Yet Charmy had been too proud to ask about events he meant to know already. Since, Nature reclaimed the island, and was overzealous at that; because the greenery was much more abundant than six months should have allowed it to be, burying the skeletons of the old buildings.

On the other end of the transmitter, Vector had thought it was simple enough that even _Charmy_ could do it. Reconnect the old terminals, collect the data on GUN's server, give said data to their client and pocket that sweet reward money. The only difficulty would have been to locate these in the maze, an old memory of Prison Island's days as a secret penitentiary, and the youngest Chaotix's own inability to focus. But _of course_, it could not be that easy.

"It's not too late to call him back," advised Espio–if Vector did not know he was in the cyberspace, he could have sworn he just popped behind him, leaning against his dedicated wall in the back of the agency.

"We ain't callin' _anyone_ back," the leader snapped. Charmy found the last terminal–the sun was already setting down on the horizon, though the well had not seen it in many years. It was at the very end of that iron tunnel, barely wide enough for a six-year-old bee, let alone a grown human. Behind two parter-doors, which was the exact point Charmy decided not to go past. The youngest of the Chaotix was certain he had seen an eye following him in the space between the cells, in darkness untouched, like the monsters under his bed would.

But they–Vector taking his part of _delegating_ very seriously–could not give up now, mere steps away from their last objective. "C'mon, Charmy, remember our motto?"

"Uh… Never turn down work that pays?"

"The _other_ motto," the leader hinted. "Once we start a job, we… We…"

"We finish the job!" Charmy blurted out.

Somehow, that little exchange gave him the traction to get to the terminal. His antennas still tingled with the pressure of the underground cell, unable to make sense of the shapes, as if instead Prison Island had been built _around_ it; but the regular echo of his own voice reassured him. He started to type in the password.

"Something's wrong," Espio informed. "I can see Charmy, but the terminal he's using is already connected to the matrix."

"So what? Makes your job easier." Vector pushed his back against his chair. He was already fantasizing about what he could do with the reward money. He could make a few renovations to the Chaotix Detective Agency–the shack definitively needed a real window, one that was not looking at the pouring nights. He could eat something different than greasy pizza. He could even take Vanilla out, in one of these fancy restaurants that served on actual ceramic plates. And when the night will be out, he will ask the orchestra for a slow. He will take her hand into his…

"You don't get it," the chameleon charged again, the foreign urgency in his voice taking Vector out of daydreaming. "That means GUN's still monitoring the place! She didn't tell us about th–"

A burst of static interrupted them both.

"… Charmy." It took a few seconds for Vector's eardrums to recover, and just as long to realize what had caused the sound distortion; as soon as he did, he jumped out of his chair, his fist hitting the desk helplessly. It was Charmy, and Charmy was _screaming_. "What the heck was that?!"

But the transmitter remained silent.

"Charmy! Espio, do _somethin'_!"

"I'm going," the chameleon answered curtly.

He felt it was not the best of times to tell Vector he had not waited for his approval to rush to his friend's rescue. Nor was it to remind him how he had opposed taking the mission from the very beginning.

When Espio warped out of the terminal, he gave the briefest of looks at what was behind him before taking Charmy back with him. It was just enough. The younger Chaotix was frozen in place. The monster itself seemed to have forgotten its original shape, unmoving as well, but it did not need to get closer to touch the ninja's mind like it had done Charmy's, stretching. _Starving_. And the image Espio saw into his brain shook his bones like a cold shower, so that he made a conscious decision not to confront it.

Vector did not pay him enough to deal with that.

* * *

The wind whipped Sonic back so, in a way unusual for the Blue Blur; as if it was consciously trying to slow him down. It seemed like another day entirely, that he had crossed the ocean, his legs effortlessly evading the sea, dragging the polar star on a leash behind him. Now the entire sky collapsed over the city, and the road stretched away like a tunnel in his vision. The copper taste of blood was rising in his mouth. There was no real phenomenon behind Sonic's sudden weakness, of course; nothing, but the knowledge that every second he lost reaching the storm's epicenter was one life being whisked away.

At the same time Team Chaotix had been exploring the ruins of Prison Island, Sonic had been running out across the sea. Something had brushed his left leg like a seagull's wing, though he had not noticed immediately. It was the longest day of the year, and Sonic decided to race with the polar star. He knew what it really was, and he knew that, when the race would be over, it would fall on the planet's curve. He would never admit this fear of his, though.

Sonic lost sight of his star when he felt something ruckling on his inner thigh. As soon as one foot touched the shore, Sonic pressed his stretched other leg into the ground to brake. A burning shiver went up, from the sole of his shoe to the tip of his quills, as the momentum kept pushing him another few meters forward. When the dust dissipated, he found himself contemplating from atop the hill the city; Westopolis' many eyes blinked back lazily as its residents drifted to sleep.

The hedgehog peeled the scrap off his leg and held its image up in the sky.

"–nic!" He turned his head. Tails was just landing lowermost, giving one of his exasperated sighs that forewarned his arrival. "I've been looking everywhere for you!" _Wonders why you're always so tired_, Sonic said in a smirk. They had been friends for as long as he could remember; they did not need words anymore. So Tails simply put his head against Sonic's shoulder.

"What's that? The _Fire in the Sky Festival_?"

"You've never heard of it?" He teased. His younger brother's face twisted in a pout. "C'mon, it's not often I get to know something you don't! It's to celebrate the Black Comet's return."

Uncle Chuck had told him about it. About the time the Black Comet had fallen into the horizon, burning the sky red as if it were a simple piece of paper. Uncle Chuck liked to talk about comets and eclipses and worlds outside Christmas Island, as if he had known his own body would never leave its coast. Unlike Sonic who, now that he would never be able to witness a moon eclipse, thought it was right to see the Black Comet for himself for its semi-centennial appearance. When he had gotten the news that it would come closest to the Earth in Westopolis, Sonic had run here–which was, for him, a matter of an hour.

"Is that Black Comet… a vessel?"

"A vessel? Like–" Sonic frowned to the picture held in front of him.

"Like _that_!" With startling strength, Tails jerked his arm forward. The hedgehog raised his head towards his sidekick's stunned face, before following his line of vision. The half-formed complaint gurgled out as if he had been physically punched by the vision. The Black Comet itself, its red energy rippling on the sky's surface like Solaris' biggest skimming stone. And under it–

"What the–"

_Monsters_.

Dozens, hundreds of black creatures falling over Westopolis.

"There's so many of them," Tails complained, and Sonic realized the fox still had his hand gripped tightly around his wrist.

"Yep, that's an invasion alright. C'mon, let's introduce ourselves."

And without taking a second breathing, Sonic rushed in the main street. Even as the bitumen stretched in front of him like rubber, the atmosphere warming up as he got closer to the red storm, he saw Westopolis turn into a war zone. The invaders on the ground birthed flames in their wake, pushing buildings down and shells of cars like mere dominoes. Tails followed behind, serving as his eyes from above.

Yet what caught Sonic's attention, outside of the creatures' _unfavorable_ appearance, was the way they avoided him. One of them did try to get in his way; and once it rose on its hind legs, the loose skin dropping around the many bony scales protruding from its head and back, he got an idea of how massive they actually were compared to their distance of before. Instead of slowing down, he jumped, one leg pedaling in the air and the other taking base on its forehead. It made a noiseless collapse. After that, the black creatures left him be.

It rubbed him up the wrong way. Not the chaos and destruction, that was routine for Sonic the Hedgehog; but the almost _childish_ glee they had causing it.

"Sonic, on your right!" He heard Tails just in time to pivot on his heel, stopping his course. There the road had collapsed, cutting a truck in half. He stepped down, nearly tripping over–but then his foot froze in the air, like one of those dumb flamingos in a garden of flames. "Over here!" Sonic approached prudently, knowing when his speed was not needed, passing a reassuring shadow over the wounded soldiers. The blue hero had little affection for GUN but seeing their forces decimated like this, it gave an idea of the adversaries he was actually dealing with.

Tails knelt next to a man. The soldier's back arched with pain, unable to rest on the ground–he held his side with his arm wrapped around so that Sonic could not see the extent of his injuries, and only seemed to relax when the two heroes catered. "His wounds are not fatal," Tails informed with relief. "Whatever attacked those soldiers did not want to… You know."

"You think it was after…" Sonic gave a look behind his shoulder to the truck. "Uh, what they were transporting?"

"–Had to move it," breathed the man under Tails' fingers. "Prison Island was compromised… We were going to Central City before…" They lost his half-formed recollection as he wriggled in pain. But Sonic did not need to listen further. He knew what had been in Prison Island, and why it needed to be moved so bad, for _he_ was the one who had displaced it–the seven of them–to their former places of memory.

If the invaders knew how to use its power, it was very, _very_ bad news.

"Tails, you stay here and help those guys outta the city."

"Wh-What are you doing?"

"My job, of course," Sonic answered. It must not have been very convincing a zinger, judging by Tails' frown, as if something in the hedgehog's grin had broken. "Don't worry, guys," he added, his eyes falling back on the wounded soldier, "I'll take it from here."

And he ran.

And he had been running, straight to the storm's epicenter. His entire mind was fixated on reaching it, and his body followed the invisible curves of the wind inside the remnants of the city, driven by instinct. The silent destruction around deafened him.

How efficient could those invaders really be? Enough to neutralize a GUN convoy in a matter of minutes, but even Eggman could not silence a megalopolis in that same amount of time. And the mad scientist had many trials. Not that he was complaining about the lack of obvious deaths, but while his legs ran forward in downtown Westopolis, his thoughts kept lassoing behind him. Far behind. Sonic the Hedgehog, the Fastest Thing Alive, could not imagine–

He stopped dead in his tracks, tumbling on his last step. There were still a few–dare he say, deliberate? Steps separating him from the incarnate center of the storm, but that was not the higher black creature he saw first atop the wreck; it was, in its claws, the green crystallized light–

"The Chaos Emerald…!"

As he said those words, the black creature snapped its head. In the Chaos Emerald's ghastly light, Sonic saw its eyes locked on him with some form of haughty intelligence. He wondered, briefly, if the cold shiver that made each individual quill rise on his skin was how his distant ancestors had felt, facing the owl ready to lunge at them.

Too bad, the blue hero _craved_ this adrenaline.

"Don't you know it's rude to pop up on someone's planet uninvited?" From the black creature's non-reaction, Sonic cut away. "Sooo, what are you guys?"

"_We are the Black Arms._" _That voice… It's reading my mind?_ No, it did not go that far, but it may have been just as perverse. It was like tendrils, going into every extension of his body, to the tip of his lips, borrowing the shape of words he had once uttered to form a message, like those were a digression of Sonic's own thought. The blue hero would later understand it could have controlled him, would it find any _necessity_ to it. "_We are here to take rule of this planet,_" it recited evenly. "_Any resistance is futile. Those who submit will be spared. Those who resist…_"

It did not need to finish. It did _something_, alright; because as soon as the words stopped echoing in Sonic's mind, the array of lower black creatures turned their heads towards him. The hedgehog knew that leaving him, sparing the soldiers, had been an act of generous _kindness_. _Ugh, I should stop hanging out with megalomaniac leaders, it's rubbing off on me._

"'Black Arms', eh? Sca–ary," he mocked. "And you're the leader of this little show? Then allow me to be the first to–" Sonic sprung forward without a warning _(show)_

Two steps and he realized the Black Arm was not giving any sign of moving away–it should have given him a hint, but by that point, he could not slow _(you)_

down. He reached forward. Four steps in–

_(ou–)_

And his hand encountered a skin of nothing.

_Where did it–_ He only had time to think about pushing through, with his other arm locking on the ground, so that his head would not hit the pavement. He teetered forward and fell on his back. In front of him–or was it technically behind him?–the Black Arm stood, slowly, consciously unfolding itself, as if plenty aware of its own capable speed. _No_, Sonic snapped out, _that's not just speed. That's… Chaos Control?_

He pushed on his elbow to turn on his side, letting a groan escape his lips. It turned its head over its shoulder. "_So you choose to resist us._"

Sonic drew his knee under him, forcing a smile in spite of the aching in his back. "Yeah, 'don't fancy that whole 'alien overlord killin' innocent people' thing." The creature blinked–with that third eyelid that reminded him of those alligators in the Lost Jungle–returning him the smile. Or its best parody of it, anyway.

"_'Killing innocent people'?_"

Sonic dashed forward, drawing his fist forward. The Black Arm stepped down to evade the jab. On instinct, he moved his left leg back, preventing himself to fall. The hedgehog pressed both his elbows down to cage it, just to see it ram up to his exposed chest. Strong enough to send him tumbling backward. As he blinked his enemy back into his field of vision, he saw the corners of it freckled with black spots.

"Hey, no Chaos Control! That's cheatin'!" Which was the moment the creature chose to reappear behind him, its arm against the back of his head.

"_You are just paying for their mistake._"

"Wh–" Sonic twirled backward to hit, the opposing leg rising to take a step onto his enemy's body. That helped him curl up, cushioning the biggest damage the hit on his ribs could have done, grinding the recoil with his two feet. A few meters away, as if it had never moved, the creature stilled.

"_… We've wasted enough time in this city._" The Chaos Emerald shone even brighter in its claws.

"Wait a sec–" Sonic reached, but his right leg collapsed under him, his entire body revolting against movement. The leader of the Black Arms only answered with a little tilt of its head, and the hedgehog realized in that expression, with rare horror, that what could be mistaken as kindness was just a _game_.

"_Look up._"


	3. H-22

"_Look up_."

Sonic craned his neck, fully aware that the moment he would leave the Black Arm from sight, it would warp away. Even then, it was not his own strength that twisted his body, ever so slowly. It had wanted him to see the titan, ripping the red sky apart as easily as if the Ring protecting the city had been made of cardboard, as a little demonstration of their power. He should be flattered, really. In spite of the many thousands separating each other, the hedgehog knew how to recognize someone showing off.

And boy, was it ugly. Not as ugly as the Biolizard had been–the horror of that creature's existence extended far beyond its physical appearance–but in his Top Three, definitively, what with the way its body crept, only carried by vestigial wings, stretching the skin thin like some Spagonian accordion. A single eye watched the hedgehog back with intent purpose.

The one advantage, with those giant monsters, was that they always had one huge design flaw.

When Sonic snapped his head down, he only got a glimpse of the Chaos Emerald's supernatural light lingering like a stuttering silhouette on TV. "Alright," he muttered to the empty space. "I'll give you a head start. 'Guess that's just you and me, big boy–"

The black titan swept down. Sonic instinctively curled up, so that the impact threw him higher into the air.

Once above Westopolis, he spread flat to slow down his fall, taking a few seconds to analyze his surroundings. The monster moved swiftly, a relative compliment coming from the Fastest Thing Alive. Already it tilted its head to catch him flying. Around it, the lower Black Arms gathered. Some had wings, too. If he could only use them to reach–

"Alright!" Sonic dove.

He managed to duck back on one of the bat-like creatures' tail, cushioning his fall. He kicked the air as a pendulum to swing. And let go when the black titan closed its arms blindly over the flock. For just a second, he watched the small body break in an ooze of pink blood, before his foot kicked on the monster's skin, landing on its right limb. The black titan tried to shake him off almost immediately, and Sonic lost his balance. As he fell, another winged alien snatched him. His legs tried to catch ground on the building's facade, but it dragged him by the neck; he only gave up when he heard the sound of ripping skin. The black bat flipped backward and released him.

Sonic's sigh fell from his lips like a bubble. How lame! It would not be as easy as he thought. He curled up to drop faster and slid under the creature's mouth to escape it. He had no choice but to keep up the pace. To find a way to get to its weak point.

"Over here!" The Black Arm turned its body to face the hedgehog. Sonic made a tentative step back, closer to the base of a facade; licked his lips with anticipation. "That's good, big boy. Come see–"

The titan rammed forward. The hedgehog sidestepped, just in time to avoid the building collapsing over them. Bingo. Sonic made use of the seconds it took to back away to climb back on its arm.

As expected, the winged Black Arms immediately gathered around. The hedgehog remembered the way they had spared him, earlier, as he had made his way into Westopolis–the higher Black Arm had flicked a switch in their brain, just to make the point of his abilities. The titan must have had the same level of control over the flock.

This time, however, he would not be taken by surprise.

Instead of running upwards his target, Sonic dashed against a Black Wing. It shifted to throw him off. He had no choice but to jump back away, putting all his weight on one supporting leg. Sonic launched himself forward–

_Moment of truth–!_

And his heel cut through the single eye. The impact made each quill of his body stand in repulsion. The black titan's body recoiled in pain into an opposing building; the hedgehog fell back to the ground, and only managed to straighten his fall by the supporting arm knocking him on the way down.

"If that's the best you guys can do–!" The dull pain irradiating the right side of his body cut his chuckle short. The hero was familiar with pain; it came with the title. But it was a grim reminder…

"–Sonic!"

"… Tails?" Sonic snapped his head, just to see the fox's bright silhouette overflying the city. He could not know if his friend could see it from the distance but forced a smile regardless. He wanted only the buildings to be witnesses of his faux pas. "Ya' managed to evacuate everyone?"

"… We di–id?"

Before he could voice another question, an eruption of light roped him back. From the edges of the facades, from all sides, the incapacitated black titan was riddled with laser beams. Its gigantic abdomen, stuck under rubbles, was unable to escape it.

Sonic took one step away when the body collapsed, before being engulfed by a cloud of dust. He waved it away. Just as he had thought, in the streets going lower down the hill, the lower Black Arms had already scattered. As soon as the black titan had been defeated, they had no drive to stay around for Round Two.

The hedgehog called after them still. "Ah! Cowards!"

"Sonic! You okay?" The fox's rotating tails pushed away the rest of the cloud as he landed, falling upon his neck. The tug only managed to make the pain spear further through his side like an iron bar–but he did his best to hide it.

"Yeah, I'm alright, buddy! I _totally_ had things under control here!" Tails frowned, unconvinced. "Really! Alright, GUN sure made it easier, but I would've won without them!"

"Oh!" Tails pulled away. "Yeah, th-that's the thing. It isn't GUN–"

"Well, _well_, if it isn't my old friend, Sonic the Hedgehog!"

Sonic's face fell. He would recognize this voice anywhere.

"Eggman." Or rather, a video of Eggman, the usually larger-than-life mad scientist stuck behind the screen of a floating monitor emerging from the ruins. His grin, though, was just the same as in person. "Came to check the finished work?"

"I'd love to take credit for such destruction," the monitor crackled wryly. "However, I've got nothing to do with it. Zip, zilch, nada!" Sonic found it hard to believe. But if Eggman had helped in any way, he had to admit, he would not have missed a chance to rub it in the hero's face.

Tails rubbed the back of his neck. "Actually–"

"Actually, I, the great Doctor Robotnik, have come to offer my help!"

Sonic let escape a dry laugh. "Sure."

"Believe me, hedgehog, those aliens are a thorn in my side I'd rather be rid of!"

Up and hours away from Westopolis' downfall, Eggman had been busy monitoring the Master Emerald from his Egg Carrier–the third Egg Carrier, the mad scientist added bitterly, only bringing a smile on the unapologetic hedgehog's lips. The Guardian had been sleeping peacefully. It may have sounded lazy, but after years of fighting alongside Sonic, Knuckles the Echidna knew he had to treasure those rare moments of peace.

Eggman would probably have taken the Master Emerald, had the Guardian's sleep not been rudely disturbed. They had seen it at the same time: startling away the last vestiges of sleep, were the titanic wings of a stone ship.

Knuckles had instantly jumped on his two feet, ready to fight as soon as the first aliens landed below on Angel Island. But Eggman decided not to get involved immediately with the aliens. It was nothing more than a secondary vessel; he was well-versed enough in flying armadas to see that, and knew the Guardian could handle it.

And if he could not, tough luck.

The scientist had made researches. He had thought of the Precursors' writings, which mentioned the existence of inhabited systems outside of Chaos. Surely, these aliens were but of an ancient civilization the Precursors had contact with, reclaiming the vessels they had planted here. A theory to which the hedgehog, unimpressed by the scientist's display of knowledge, scoffed loudly.

"Spare us the history lesson and get to the point, Eggman. I've got a world to save."

"It's not the first time those aliens have come on this planet," Eggman dropped. "We're facing a high-scale, highly-organized invasion, probably planned for millenniums."

_'Killing innocent people'? You're just paying for their mistake._ That's what the leader of the Black Arms had said; or rather, spoken into his mind, words hitting like the burn of a bullet, as powerful as any physical injury he had sustained. Eggman was right on one point: it was not the first time the invaders and the planet had crossed ways.

"I don't like it any more than you do, Sonic. But if we want to stop this invasion, we need to join forces."

Sonic furrowed his brows. "And why should we trust you?"

"Surely you're not _that_ dense. How will I conquer the world if there is no world?!"

_Yeah, that's fair._ Yet the hero could not shake off his suspicion that Eggman had something to do with the invaders. Or knew something about them that he did not disclose. That would not be the first time the greatest scientific genius in the world lost control of his monsters, after all.

"Sonic," Tails finally spoke, "I know it's hard to believe, but Eggman's on our side. His robots have been helping evacuate the last people trapped in Westopolis."

"Aw, don't waste your time, fox boy" Eggman cooed. "I thought as much. So, as a little reconciliation gift…"

The monitor jumped, startling them. Under the screen, a cassette opened. And from inside, blue light stretched away, as if it had long been hidden away from the rest of the world.

"You're givin' us a Chaos Emerald," Sonic stated flatly, reaching for it. If Eggman was ready to give up one of the seven most powerful gems on the planet, then maybe his intentions were true, in his own twisted way.

"I knew you'd see the light, _friend_." Eggman's picture on the screen split; it seemed to Sonic the mad scientist's smile grew even larger.

"Just tell us what you want from us."

"You're spoiling the fun of it. Fine! I'm guessing those aliens managed to make a hole through the Mobius Ring using a Chaos Emerald."

"Yeah," Sonic confirmed, cracking his shoulder bone, the memory of his encounter still vivid on his body. "A Black Arm has stolen it from GUN."

"But," Tails interrupted, "that still doesn't tell us how this one… Black Arm got through first, right?"

"One single Chaos Emerald," Eggman brushed off, "doesn't have enough power to bring the main vessel to the surface. But, chances are, those secondary vessels they're reactivating are here to collect the rest." Sonic did not need to look up to remember what main vessel Eggman alluded to. The Black Comet was now so close to the planet, its sole shadow stretched far to the outskirts of Westopolis.

"But we also have a Chaos Emerald! So we can use their strategy against them. You'll just have to get rid of the pesky intruders on my base and borrow one of my spaceships to fly to the comet and deal with them on their own turf."

"Basically, we're doin' the dirty job while y'are stayin' safe in your Egg Carrier."

"Correct!" Eggman's exclamation was unapologetic.

Tails tugged at the hedgehog's arm. He kept looking, behind his shoulder, at the body of the fallen black titan. Following his line of sight, Sonic could not help but feel the dead eye was still watching them. Somehow.

"Just one thing," he addressed the watchman, clicking his tongue as a warning. "We're stoppin' by Angel Island first. We can't let Knuckles have all the fun, can we?"

"Bah! A waste of time. But fine. The more, the merrier!"

* * *

What Eggman failed to tell Sonic–dishonesty and neglect were not a good mix, and the mad scientist indulged in both–was that the stone ship near Angel Island was only one of several vessels that the Black Arms had already reactivated across the region. Not that Rouge complained; with the forces of GUN being busy in the Death Ruins, a name that called for catastrophe, no one would notice her absence. At least, that was how she tried to reassure herself, her avatar pacing around the exit terminal, waiting for her contact to show up with a miracle.

Maybe hiring some backwater with no reputation had not been her smartest idea.

Well, if she had had any choice, she would have handled it alone! But after the Biolizard incident, GUN must have had figured she had found out things they did not want her to find. It was not her fault. Rouge the Bat could not stand people lying to her. Trying to _outsmart_ her! That was the word. Or maybe it was out of habit–though Prison Island had always been, in the Commander's own words, spare, she did help Eggman infiltrate it, adding to her list of–oh so little!–lapses of judgment. Either way, GUN's top spy got her many accreditations down to a beginner's.

While her thoughts were storming, she heard steps echoing behind hers. "Don't you know it's rude to keep a girl waitin–"

As soon as she turned her head, Espio the Chameleon planted a finger under Rouge's chin, as swift as he would have done a knife. She winced. While destroying her avatar would not hurt her, she could not afford to reenter the cyberspace from another terminal, without raising her superiors' suspicions.

"Did you know?"

"About…?"

"About that _monster_ on Prison Island!" Rouge did not know much about the chameleon–in the few times she had met the Chaotix in person, he struck her as the silent, serious type. But it was just enough to know how rare the break in his voice was.

"Well, if I knew about anything on Prison Island, I wouldn't have hired you guys, would I?" She lightly pushed the threatening finger away. The argument must have hit, for Espio relented. "I take it you've got some juicy info to share."

"We managed to reconnect all the old terminals on Prison Island, as was our mission." The digital circuits branching away from the terminal had indeed lightened, so Rouge could, just like Espio, send data from one to the other. "However… we found something weird."

"Weirder than the monster?"

"Before," Espio snarled. "The last terminal was already connected. I figured someone was still monitoring the place. Probably that."

Now that was interesting. "Have any idea what it was?"

Espio tried to describe it to the best of his capabilities. The proud ninja would never admit he ran away from the fight, and Rouge had mentally forced herself to tone down the sarcasm and made no comment–regardless, the description was far from helpful. The thing he remembered most was the impulsion it had sent through his brain–and Charmy's as well. The last sentence about the youngest Chaotix dawned on the lone spy.

"That's not a risk we knew of," Espio reminded coolly. "You've got the data you wanted, so our mission's done."

"–Wait!" Rouge startled herself out of thoughts. "You said it was black?" That detail was also mentioned in that report. The report she had found up there. It did not make sense for its subject to be down _here_.

Espio cocked his head. "What does that mean?"

She did not bother revise the words; instead, she flashed her fakest smile as a distraction. "It means that I'll have to extend your mission. I'm doubling."

The chameleon sighed. When it came to money, he knew when a battle against Vector was not worth fighting. "What's the mission, then?"

"What do you say about a little trip to space?"

* * *

The Fool.

Amy squinted at the card. She knew what pulling the Fool as her Future meant. The figure, back drawn against the first two pulls, walked, one foot past the edge of the cliff, not seeing the bottomless pit; to get what she sought, she too had to abandon her Past and Present and jump into the unknown. She was all too familiar with the Fool–

"_What are you doing?_" The voice that spoke in Amy's head–she could only make it apart from her own thoughts by the grave quality of it, the voice he borrowed from Sonic–was void of any real curiosity. When she raised her head, she could see him waiting at the end of the corridor.

"I'm just doing a tarot pull. You know," she added as he kept silent, "for some words from the stars?" When he did not say anything still, she realized the meaning underlying his words. She quickly shuffled the cards back together and swept the dust off her dress before reuniting.

"Sorry," she let slip. "It's just… This place gives me the creeps. I hope Cream's okay…"

"_It will soon be gone,_" the black alien stated. "_Like the rest._" He

_(Shadow.)_

_(knew them all. Each major city on each continent. Foolish humans, building the instrument of their own destruction.)_

"You're wrong," Amy argued. "Someone will stop you."

"_They're welcome to try._" The alien flared his nostrils in a sneer.

_You want to destroy this world, and yet you're helping me,_ Amy thought, meeting her eyebrows as she did. _Why?_

At the same time Sonic and Tails were running back to the Tornado plane, and Rouge and Espio were making a new contract, Amy Rose was stuck in Cryptic Castle. She did not know why Eggman would have chosen such a place to build one of his bases–the hues of orange and red marring the sky in large hand strokes could only be the work of one megalomaniac scientist. Cream had wanted to explore. Well, Cheese had, which was the same. Eight years totaling the two of them, they could not yet fully understand how Eggman could permeate the colors in Amy's memory. But it would have been unfair to deprive them of wondering because of her own trauma.

When they had entered the castle, Cheese and Cream had immediately run down the main corridor, just waiting to let their fingers burn at the tip of a flame. Amy had tried to go after them before the shadows in the empty spaces engulfed them; but suddenly, cold had crept up her spine, as if a ghost had drawn against her back.

Before she could have turned around, the corridor had collapsed right in front of her.

When she had moved her arms, shielding her eyes from the rising dust, she had seen in the horizon line the bull's massive silhouette taking off, revealing the opening it had made, like a gorge on that red sky, on what used to be the castle ward; turned into a warzone. She had taken a few steps with her back against the wall, pulling her arm back, ready to summon her Piko Piko Hammer if needed, to get a better look.

On one side: Eggman's familiar robots. On the other: some alien black creatures, pushing them off on the right wall. The mechanical soldiers were putting up a good fight, but they were outnumbered, judging by the eclipse of the aliens' sheer number on the sky.

Once the initial stupefaction had faded, Amy's concern had surfaced again.

"… Cream?" No traces of the rabbit or her Chao friend.

"Oh no–Cream!" What if she had been caught in the crossfire?! In spite of the danger, Amy had walked forward, sliding down on the pile of rubble left by the black bull to get to the ward, through the smoke and the dust.

As she had landed in the middle ward, her knees had bent forward. An awfully familiar smell of sulfide and metal had welcomed her. Wild overgrown grass had scraped against her legs, trying to hold her back. Amy had not backed down. The pink hedgehog could not have run away and waited for Sonic to save the day again. Cream was her responsibility. Besides, she knew that facing both armies was a more desirable fate than the prospect of Vanilla's cool wrath. A manifestation of her will, her hammer had appeared in her hand.

The forfeit ghosts had let her pass.

"_Cream!_" Another shake had answered her plea.

She had swiped the air to dissipate the dust. In the middle of the ward, she had seen one single black creature standing on the ground. She figured it might have seen the overseer, showing its back crowned with horns, and surrounded by a murder of the winged aliens–ramming against the second gatehouse. Her body moved faster than her thoughts. "Hey! You guys can't attack here!"

And she had jumped, head of the hammer first.

It had hit its target.

The alien, kind enough to acknowledge the strike, had twisted its head behind its shoulder; the cold nonchalance in its eyes had rippled over her own skin. She had thrown Piko Piko behind. "What are you–"

"_Move away,_" it had advised from inside her head, soft and yet as cold as a stolen kiss.

"… You can't attack here," Amy had repeated. "I don't know what you want here, but Cream's lost here. You could hurt her!" The alien had fully turned its body, bouncing on its feet like an accordion, and Amy had flinched when it had displayed its full size. Her grasp on the handle of her hammer had tightened. "I'm not leaving without my friend. Please." She had feared that, without this mast to hold onto, she would have fallen. "Please…"

_(please, Shadow.)_

"… Huh?"

"_Your friend,_" the foreign echo came again. "_What do they look like?_" Amy had blinked, quizzical. She could have sworn she had heard another voice, a creation of its own, a low and warm pulsation. But when her eyes went up, she had only seen the same even frown etched in the alien's skin.

"Oh, uh… She's a rabbit. Small, long ears–Oh! And Cheese! He's a Chao…" Its eyes had closed lazily as it had drifted thoughts; and in the silence following, Amy had noticed how the surrounding sounds had faded out, and she could have heard the nervous beat of her own heart making the clock.

"_Alright._"

"… 'Alright?'"

The alien turned around. "_Let's find your friend._"

"… Oh!" Amy had collected her hanging jaw, thrown back her hammer and trotted to close the distance. "Thank you!"

"_You'll serve as a witness of the Black Arms' capabilities,_" it–he–had clarified. The smile had instantly frozen on the pink hedgehog's face. "_Your testimony to give to the rest of this world._"

But Amy had doubted this motive.

Cryptic Castle was a labyrinth. All corridors looked the exact same, down to the tawny patches on the walls, where the sun could not reach. And out in the successive wards, the large breathing chasms left by the ongoing fight slowed them down. Yet the Black Arm–the closest to a name she had gotten–kept walking, at a steady pace. He waited when she needed more time. He did not discourage her. Only when she had asked why he did not, fully aware of herself, his voice had crept back like the slow bellow of a predator:

"_We have time._"

Since she made a point not to complain. When she scraped her knee against a rock, when she could taste her own blood on her lips, the salt rubbed on the back of her glove; not a word. This adventure was the bare minimum she should be able to go through if she ever wanted to reach the blue hedgehog she oh-so loved. And the wild flowers stopped piquing her skin, and the holes in the walls stopped whispering.

And there was the Fool. The old card still bore the scar, the burned corners, of its last adventure. The tarot had never lied to her–and she had trusted Sonic, just another silent stranger on Little Planet. She could trust it again.

When Amy came to her senses, the Black Arm was already walking down. She ran to rejoin.

"Wait–" The corridor ended in a round room. A dead-end, if not for the hatch in the ground. Her eyes ran up and down the wall. Above their heads, a crooked moon smile let her know it was nighttime. "We're back in the gatehouse?"

"_It looks like it._"

"But… How?"

"_Someone's been misleading us._" The alien growled–Amy mentally noted it was the first time she heard him make a sound.

"It's not Eggman," she breathed. "There's something else down here."

He flung the door trap open. Amy's eyes fell back down. Cryptic Castle's gutter system. But that was not the putrid smell that got to her–though it was strong enough to make her miss the burning oil she had come to associate with Eggman himself. There was something way too deliberate about this hole, just wide enough for her to throw a body of sound. She gulped. Saying the words would only concretize the situation they found themselves in. "That's where Cream must have fallen…?"

"_We have our eyes everywhere over the castle,_" the alien confirmed. "_If your friend was at the first level, we'd have found her already._"

"That sounds like a trap."

"_Absolutely._"

"… Well," she exhaled, "since we don't have a choice." Even though she was scared, even though the cold drawings on her back came to remembrance; she could not let her resolve waver. Cream's life was on the line. And for the first time, she took a step before. "Help me down."

The Black Arm curled back his upper lip. Amy could have sworn he smiled.

Once she managed to go on, she could better see the depth of the castle's old catacombs. At the edge of her vision, she saw the blackened patches where the flames used to lick the walls, the cleared spots; and instinctively, Piko Piko brought itself forth. The head of the hammer forward and straining on her arm, making sure her whole weight was on her back, she carefully started the descent.

The alien's feet rushed behind her, making the silvers tremble before her. "Hey! Be caref–"

"_Move!_"

Amy did not have time to react. At the same time she was pushed forward, the gutter tube gave under her free hand, and she was engulfed in a drift of rising air.

Time froze.

Looking up, she saw her companion

_(Shadow.)_

and somehow, an old memory flashed in her mind. She was sitting behind some fogged window of Station Square, watching her golden hero fight the Chaos monster. At the same time, she was behind a panel, stars falling on her face, in a body that was _definitively_ not hers. Her two bodies felt the same raw fear, unable to go against the

_(Maria.)_

fall.

_(Maria!)_

Something caught her in midair, pulling her out of the dream.

She turned on her side, trying to stand up. Her eyes met the wing of one of the flying aliens. Head turned up, she could make out–or could not–what attacked them. A giant, skeleton-like creature, hanging cross both walls with a spider's agility; and the Black Arm, just a red spot running vertically down and trying to slow the inevitable fall. Amy did not have time to think. Pushing on her shoulder, she forced the bird to veer. Time to be impulsive. Time to _pull a Sonic!_

"Hey, ugly!" She managed to sit, and threw Piko Piko behind her head. One hand under the handle anticipated its magical growth. "Don't you _dare_!"

As the Black Arm passed under her, Amy flung the hammer against the giant walker. The head of the hammer backed it against a single wall. Enough way for another bird to be summoned, catching him.

He glided back to her level, but her eyes were dead set on the creature, as if, like the monsters in Rob's old tales, blinking would dispel the illusion of stillness. "What was that now?"

_That_ meant a lot of things, but the Black Arm, unaware, hung on one. "_Look down._" His mount closed on hers, forcing them to take a curve, and her to turn away. In the darkness, a cold, ghostly light managed to writhe through; unveiling a pair of familiar silhouettes.

"Cream! Cheese!"

"_The Chaos Emerald. Ingenious,_" the Black Arm added with a rare hint of admiration, "_using the castle's natural guardian to protect the Chaos Emerald…_" They turned their heads at the same time. The giant walker had managed to settle itself again and already thrust its body back. The mounted birds flew up to avoid the creature's rush.

"How are we going to defeat it?"

"_We don't need to. We only need the Chaos Emerald._"

Her brain yelled at her. The Chaos Emeralds, put into the wrong hands, had enough power to destroy the world. The Black Arm had made no secret of his species' intentions. But her heart remembered the folds of the Fool in her pocket, and that remnant feeling she had just taken from him. A common, _humane_ feeling. And so, in spite of herself, she shook up her head. "I'll distract it."

"_You make a bad distraction,_" the Black Arm refused with his dry humor. "_Go to your friend. We'll take care of that._" He did not let her retort; as per an untold order command, Amy's mount separated itself from the other and took another full turn down the giant walker's head. The Black Arm's turned towards its abdomen.

At the very last moment, he jumped from the lower alien, letting the momentum lever the top of the creature's body. Amy had just enough space to fly through. A swift movement over the mount's head forced it to turn. Cream's silhouette, though upside-down, was drawing near. Fast. She raised Piko Piko forward as a mast. Unlike a certain someone, she did not have the piloting manual of those things imprinted into her brain. "Cream! Catch!"

The rabbit raised her own arms, catching the hammer as it passed over her head. Amy unlocked her legs from around the mount's back, and the force threw her into her friend's arms.

"Miss Rose!" She tried to speak through the hiccups, "I–I'm sorry–I should not have run away–I–" Her embrace tightened, and Cheese nuzzled under her chin. It was just Piko Piko's head between all three of them that prevented Amy to suffocate from the starved hug.

"It's okay," she said, running a comforting hand through her friend's tuft.

Cream sniffed. "H–How did you find us…?" As the adrenaline waved again, Amy turned her head sharply. Thanks to the nearby Chaos Emerald's light enveloping them, she saw the Black Arm had landed on the end of a gutter, caged between the giant walker's legs. The creature was too busy turning around to notice the hedgehog next to its treasure. "Miss Rose…?"

Amy cupped Cream's legs over one forearm, holding Piko Piko in her free arm. "Cheese, take the Chaos Emerald, will you?" With that, she walked as close as she could from the edge of the shrine. The giant walker raised its body vertically, ready to lunge. The thoughts muddled in the heroine's mind.

"Shadow!" As if he had known her plan, the Black Arm slid down what little remained of the gutter, escaping the head drop. Amy extended Piko Piko's handle as far as the magic could reach to bridge.

"Cheese, the Emerald!" The Chao threw the fabulous gem into the air.

And, as it scraped the darkness, its radiant light suddenly blinded them.

* * *

In front of the whited-out screen, the Egg Robots in charge of the fleet waited for their orders. They knew the imperfect line of half-empty cans on the board, the circles of abrased wood marking the cans before, betrayed the master's state of mind; thankfully for him, Robotnik had opted out of integrating a voice chip onto his newest models.

Let's recapitulate. His base in Cryptic Castle had just been compromised. He could only hope that, if he had not managed to extract the Chaos Emerald, neither did the invaders. He had extracted the one in Circus Park–the one that was now in Sonic's hands–before GUN had the bright idea of launching a raid on it. They probably thought he had something to do with the Black Arms. Their suspicions were not _entirely_ unfounded–if someone as insignificant as Rouge could access the matrix, it was child's play for the brilliant mind of Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, the task as absurd as teaching a bird how to fly. But GUN sure had become masterful in the art of scapegoating.

Anyway, Circus Park: compromised, as well.

Robotnik pinched the bridge of his nose. "All auxiliary ships, move over Iron Jungle." All robots scuttered away, all too happy to escape the wrath of their master.

Once they were gone, the mad doctor let the tide of frustration break, submerging all lucid thought. His palm crushed over the cans of Egg Drinks.

"All _worthless_! I've been building my power for decades, and those aliens are destroying _everything _in mere _minutes_! And they–they _knew_! The Precursors warned us of powers outside of Chaos and Solaris millenniums ago, and they knew, and did _nothing_! But they better make no mistake–_I'm the one who will rule this planet!_"

Robotnik's eyes fell upon the corner page of a report, hidden under the keyboard. Hurriedly, he pulled it, trying to rub away the abrased rings. In his rage, he had forgotten about it.

It was, coincidentally, the same document Rouge had found. Not that Robotnik knew, after she had gone through the revolving door one too many times. The bat knew the rudimentary Chun-nan it had been mainly redacted in, as was expected from a spy, but it was this sentence, in her own alphabet, had struck her as odd, without more consideration at that time. The doctor who, as a matter of ego, cared little about languages that were not his own, already knew to whom the thick lettering, the rubbed ink of a left hand, belonged to.

_ASTRONOMERS ARE CONCLUDING THAT MONSTROUSBLACKS–_

"Grandfather," Robotnik asked to the paper, "try tell me, what have they done _this time_?"


	4. H-18

While Tails was busy preparing the Tornado plane, Sonic paced along the beach behind the workshop. The hedgehog had quickly grown impatient, waiting on the edge of a table, smoldered by the smell of oil and his friend's volatile words, and before he could snap he had found an escape. Outside, the sun was rising, the wind was blowing, carrying the salt that he could not bring. The thick foam cradled lazily around his ankles with each step.

He was not one for silent contemplation. He would rather run. Let his thinking behind and feel the elements fight their grip over his body. Make him feel alive. But even he needed some downtime. He would never tell any soul he, the great Sonic the Hedgehog, could be afraid of losing those sights he took for granted.

"How's your wound?" Sonic turned his head towards Tails, coming out of the workshop.

"Thought I could fool ya," he tried to laugh off. But the fox bobbed his head to the side, giving him a critical frown.

The hedgehog begrudgingly raised his right arm. His bruise had started to take an ugly purplish hue, stretching from under his armpit to the back of his leg. When his friend put his hand long the dash, he turned his head, blushing. Of a lie. Tails was no doctor, but over the years, he had gotten used to fix the hero's wounds, from small scratches to burned skin; and Sonic trusted his judgment more than any city-bound specialist, who had never seen a battlefield. And he knew that his friend's gesture meant he suspected something worse under the bruise. A broken rib, perhaps.

The fingers ended up cresting his open wound in the back of his neck, where the bat-like alien had ripped his skin. "You need a few stitches," he diagnosed.

Sonic shrugged with his one free shoulder. "We don't really have time for that. The Tornado's ready?"

"Ah, yes! I've made the last verifications. Eggman sent me Angel Island's current coordinates. It's only an hour away to the west."

"Great!" The hedgehog pulled Tails' shoulders under one arm, distracting him. "Then what are we waitin' for?" But in spite of Sonic's brotherly affection, his frown did not soften.

"… I'm scared," Tails admitted. "If what Eggman says is true, we've never had to fight something like that…" As his muzzle buried in Sonic's forearm, the hedgehog could not help but feel his heart drop in his chest. The fox might have acted tough, the voice of reason in their tango; but he was still a cub, robbed out of a childhood, and it was not so long ago he was hiding behind the palm trees of West Side Island.

"Don't worry, buddy. We've always saved the world before. And we'll do it again!"

Tails laughed weakly, pushing his brother's arm away. "Right." It was for people like Tails that Sonic could not afford to falter.

"Then last to the Tornado's a loser!" And Sonic dashed back to the workshop, his brother dragged behind.

According to Eggman's coordinates, Angel Island was only a hundred miles west following the northern coast, over the Vast Nazca. It would have taken less time on ground for the Fastest Thing Alive, but Knuckles' home had the inconvenient of being perpetually airborne. The mad scientist had counted that as a positive. It means the Master Emerald is not in their hands, he had said, his disgust dripping through the monitor.

Still, in the backseat of the Tornado, following the curve of the sun to their destination, it seemed to Sonic it never took so long to rise. There were only so many positions he could shift into, so many clouds he could count, to alleviate his boredom. At some point, Sonic stood on the bridge of the Tornado's wings. At the distance, he saw the silhouette of Angel Island on the horizon–

"–Watch out!" The hedgehog slid down the Tornado's right wing, just in time for the plane to tip and avoid the projectile.

Tails made a hard drift to restabilize. "What was _that_?!"

Sonic, still holding on with both hands, looked up. He recognized one of the bat-like creatures he had encountered in Westopolis, flailing frantically against the air; and he smiled. The throw was more definitively the signature of a certain red echidna. "Seems like it's the welcomin' committee!"

"There's too much foliage," Tails informed, engaging a turn around the outskirts of Angel Island. "I can't see anything!"

Sonic walked back to the bridge and lowered his head at the pilot's level. Through the thick forest covering the island, only the slight panaches of smoke blooming hinted at the presence of Eggman's troops. No sign of the Carrier anywhere on the horizon. "Eggman, ya with us?"

"I wouldn't _dream _of giving up on you," the transmission from the Tornado cooed sarcastically. "We're pushed against Red Moutain. As much as I hate to admit it, I've run into a _tiny_ little setback in Iron Jungle. I can't waste any more troops on you."

The Tornado touched the tip of Red Mountain. Behind it appeared the Black Arms' stone vessel. "Don't try to play hero, Sonic," Eggman snarled as if he could hear the hedgehog's thoughts. "We only need to stop the Black Comet itself. Let them the island if they want it so much." Their precarious alliance had done little to soften the mad scientist's utilitarian views.

"Try to land in the canyon," Sonic diverged the attention to Tails. "See ya later!"

"Wait–" But he already jumped out of the Tornado.

The hedgehog let the incline snowball him at the foot of Red Mountain, gaining more speed. The landscapes melted at the periphery of his vision–blues– Browns– Greens; at which point the atmosphere weighed down, as infallible as a wall of bricks. Before he could drift from the determined path momentum had locked him into, a pair of claws locked on his sides.

The sudden contact made every cell of his body cry in protest. Anchoring both hands into the ground, the hedgehog threw his whole body back, dragging the Black Arm up with the motion. Behind him, the familiar echo ripple of broken bone sent the creature flying.

The first rank of Black Soldiers, stunned, retreated a step.

"Took you long enough to show up!"

The hedgehog turned around with a grin. "Nice to see ya too, Knucklehead!" His back against the mountain wall, the once-proud Guardian was in a dejected state.

Knuckles opened his mouth again. But before the words came out, his hand pulled Sonic towards him, just escaping a movement from the Black Soldiers. His nose was overwhelmed with the familiar smell of soot and blood–and the thought that it could be the echidna's instantly kicked him back.

"Now that you're here, they stand no chance!"

Sonic scanned his surroundings. Soon, his heart sank. While he had always liked Knuckles' naive confidence, everywhere his eyes could see, the Black Arms flared the markings on their horns like as many bared teeth. Eggman had been right: it would be impossible to drive off so many of them. And the Black Arms watched Sonic back with intent. They knew.

"Actually, I'm here to get you outta here."

"Yeah, yeah. Just need to get the Master Emerald–"

"I kind of was thinkin' we could…" Sonic winced, mentally preparing himself. "Leave the Master Emerald behind?"

As expected, the Guardian blew. "_What?!_"

That outburst seemed to be the waited signal to attack. Since they could not retreat, Sonic instinctively pushed the echidna down, crawling under the first row of Black Soldiers.

"Are you crazy?!"

"I don't like it either, but do ya have a better idea?"

Knuckles grumbled. Automatically his arm, still firmly in the hedgehog's hand, threw the latter against the wall, above the melee. Sonic was holding on vertically only by the sheer strength of his friend. "I'm not leaving the Master Emerald to those–"

"Running now, arguing later!"

He was flung against the Black Arms without a second warning.

Sonic would later suspect the echidna had put a little more energy in the throw than what had been needed. But it was more than enough for his Spin Dash to cut through the aliens' army, into the forest. When he started to lose momentum, he saw behind his head Knuckles running, and the black wave walling their exit. It did not follow.

_Of course_ they did not.

The echidna dragged behind. Sonic knew it was neither exhaustion nor his own speed that weighed down his feet. "We could've fought them," Knuckles reproached.

He slowed down to align. "We can't, Knuckles. We're outnumbered–"

"So," he spat out stubbornly, "I should just let those monsters take over my island?"

"It's not just Angel Island," Sonic blew off. "It's the whole world! What, you're goin' to fight all of them? Ya sure did a splendid job so far!" It was an unfair comment, and he knew it. Yet it was the best way to get through the Guardian's blind pledge.

"Ya did your best," he added empathically. He fought himself against his own instinct to turn around, but the likely end of it was already burned under his skin. "But trust me. I need ya with us, not here."

Knuckles did not retort. But as Sonic encouragingly started to accelerate to escape Angel Island, his feet slowly aligned as well.

* * *

"Sir."

From the bay window of the palace, the President watched the sun melting on the shadows of Central City. He could not hear the battle going on in the distance, obviously, but the lingering silence in the room was equally as deafening. Having the knowledge he possessed since his nomination, and yet not being able to do anything to save his people–it dawned on him, the epiphany of a captain bound to his sinking ship, that it might be the last sunset he would ever see.

He had not always been the President. But everyone called him so; erasing up to the memory of his birth name. Those very same people, who called him the President, failed to see that the title did not come just with red velvet carpets and a nice golden pen. It came with responsibilities, with secrets. Secrets too big for a single generation of men to keep.

"Sir," the Commander spoke from the door, the silence evidently straining his patience. "We must go now, please."

"… Yes."

The President gave one last look at the frame on his desk. Other people would have a picture of a wife, a son, a family dog. He had no such thing in his life, but a stolen photograph of Earth's hero. "Let us hope he'll save us where we failed." Again.

"As long as you're alive, Sir, we'll keep fighting." The Commander walked behind him, stretching his shadow with an awareness that made a chill crawl down his spine. "No matter the sacrifice."

He did not give a glance at the burning city.

* * *

If Sonic had managed to convince the Guardian to leave the Master Emerald behind, it did not stop Knuckles from complaining once or ten times during their trip to Iron Jungle. Eggman, who scarily shared his archnemesis' impatience, had tried to give his theory. The Black Arms preceded Pachacamac's civilization by one or two millenniums; hence they could not have had known about the ritual known by the descendants, only prevent its power to be used against them. The doctor's egotistic brilliance could have been better wasted on a brick wall. At least Knuckles never tried to take control of the Tornado himself.

Soon, Sonic had reclaimed his favorite spot on the bridge of the plane wings. From there, he watched the trees melt behind gray walls, with the wind taunting him to stay behind like an old friend's embrace. A dead, artificial jungle: it was the fate the mad scientist promised to the rest of the world.

But it was the lesser of two evils.

"I'm going to lower our altitude," Tails warned.

As Sonic reasonably crouched to hold onto the bridge, he noticed a… curious scene unfolding on one of the bases' upper lanes. Familiar white and green robots forcing their way against the Egg Pawns.

… Make that three evils.

"What's GUN doing here?" Tails voiced Sonic's interrogation.

"They must believe I have something to do with them," Eggman's voice explained dismissively. "They found a perfect scapegoat, since those incompetents won't do anything against the real evil."

The hedgehog refrained from pointing out the irony of the statement. "What's that mean?"

"Central City has fallen, that means." He let the revelation sink in. Central City. The capital. They had not even gotten an opportunity to save it–the megalopolis was gone, with as little panache as a roadkill's necrology, an afterthought in the ongoing war.

"They managed to extract the President, and now the President's trying to put up a good front, fighting a convenient target."

"… Should we help?"

"We've wasted enough time as is." Knuckles behind cleared his throat at the pique. "My troops can handle those sub-par machines."

"If ya say so."

As they flew under the lane, Sonic could not help but feel the accusing gaze of the mechanical eyes following him.

GUN was supposed to be the protector of the planet, and it made sense it would get involved in a global crisis that started on its territory, especially after what happened in Westopolis. In Central City. But the memory of the Biolizard incident, their own twisted creation, was still fresh in everyone's minds. Even Eggman–whose record was far from spotless either–became strangely solemn.

He only found his panache back when the Tornado flew over the runway, slowing down the curve of the volcano. "Behold: the Egg Shut–"

"We ain't callin' it that," Sonic interrupted curtly, though he could not help but be impressed by the size of it, next to their little travel plane–not something he could marvel at when Eggman's inventions would be flying at him full speed. But mainly, he wanted to tame someone else's enthusiasm. And failed.

"It's _huge_!" Even as he landed the Tornado next to the shuttle, Tails' eyes remained hypnotized by the flamboyant red ship. The plane's nose fell down the runway as he pulled himself out of the pilot's ship.

"At least someone appreciates my genius," Eggman boasted.

"As long as it flies," Knuckles resolved, leaving the Tornado's backseat in turn.

Sonic uncharacteristically dragged behind, watching Tails enter the shuttle and following with quick eyes his running across the command room and his messing with sets of buttons he had only the faintest idea of the use. For that brief moment, Tails, engulfed in his passion for mechanics, had forgotten about the looming threat entirely.

"Hey, is that an outer gravity dispersion ring? I can't believe it!" "Tails…" "And how did you even get that? Wow!" "Tails…" "Can you even–" "_Tails_."

A firm hand managed to grasp the fox's shoulder, stopping his mad pacing. He looked up, mouth half-open. Sonic sucked his cheek in-between his teeth before he broke the news: "I want ya to stay here with Eggman."

"… What?" It took a second for the words to register before Tails' ears perked indignantly, and he pushed the hedgehog's hand away. It remained hanging in the empty space between the two brothers. "Why?!"

"There's somethin' fishy goin' on with GUN," Sonic explained. "I need ya to take care of it."

"But I'd be more useful going with you! Sonic, I know–"

"I don't doubt it, lil' bro." The hedgehog refrained the impulse of ruffling Tails' fur; it would be bad timing. "But someone has to keep those guys in check too."

"Indeed," Eggman added helpfully, his wide smile as fake as the moon's crescent. He knew Sonic did not trust him with that matter, and made no secret of it. "Not that I care much. But if GUN is defeated, it'll be a great hit to humanity's fighting spirit. Simple war politics, really."

Tails did not give up, putting a foot down Sonic's space. "Who's going to fly the ship without me?"

"Eh, I'm sure Knuckles's become an expert."

"That's not difficult," the echidna butted in, failing to catch the sarcasm in Sonic's voice.

"_Knuckles_! You're okay with that?" Knuckles rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but provided no answer. Tails made a sharp pivot of his head from one shoulder to the other, but the half-circle showed no sign of disunion. Sonic extended his hand back.

"Tails," he soothed, choosing the words he would say carefully in his head–an exercise in diplomacy he was not exactly the best at. "I don't wanna break up Team Sonic either. But you're the only one I trust with that job here. You'll be more useful here."

The fox's eyes dropped towards the ground. "Are you sure–"

"Yep."

Tails relented. He bypassed Sonic's open arm, to wrap his arms carefully under his spines. The hedgehog tried not to wince; the discomfort of the physical contact did not beat his brother's need for a hug.

"You come back in one piece, alright?" Sonic could not answer to that. Instead, he gently pulled Tails away, one hand drawing a timid smile on the fox's face.

"Touching," Eggman interrupted, sarcasm dripping from his voice unfiltered. "But while we're wasting our time with your stupid wheedling, our planet's still under attack. I suggest we move before we get stopped ag–"

"_Soni–ic!_"

The hedgehog froze on the spot. Oh, he knew this voice, full of roses, of long slow walks on the beach, of the idea of growing old; no mad scientist nor alien invader in this universe could replicate the primal fear it inspired him.

Everyone but him turned their head–or their semblance of one–towards the shuttle door. The idiots. They did not know what was coming.

"Isn't that–" He recovered from his stupor soon enough to push Knuckles against the command board, making the unsuspecting echidna stumble down. The motion made the whole shuttle swing, pressing its inhabitants on its wall.

"_Wait, Sonic!_" A tentative glance behind his shoulder. In the narrow space between the shuttle door frame, he saw the pink silhouette grow. Coming closer. Too late to escape. He braced himself inwardly.

Yet at the very last moment, he saw Amy braking, waving her hands in front of her not to fall over.

"Just in time," she breathed out, cheeks puffed red.

"How did you get here?!" No one bothered with the shouting monitor's question–where Amy was involved, you had to accept the power of love as a legitimate answer.

Tails was the first to walk outside the shuttle, as he should have. Though he was not the target of her glutton affection, he still held his arms in front of him as a shield. "Hey, Amy, sorry, but we're in a hur–"

"You're going to fight the Black Arms?" Amy dispelled Tails entirely, her eyes transfixed on Sonic with a gravity foreign on her face. The hero wondered how she knew their name; but then he noticed the scrapes on her legs, the soot on her face, the long marks over it, and something flared inside his chest.

"Don't worry, Ames, I'll–"

"Don't."

Unanimous disbelief welcomed her word. Sonic himself felt his jaw drop in shock before he collected it. "What are ya talkin' about? They want to destroy the world! They're evil–"

"They aren't," Amy declared. Then, in a softer voice: "Well… The one I met isn't. I know that."

* * *

"–Miss Rose?"

Amy blinked. Once, twice, to make the lingering butterflies leave her sight. Over her head, spread between her fingers, the stars winked at her, unfazed. A cloudless night, like there had been many others. She could have thought it was just a dream, a tale, and that she had fallen asleep with Cream buried against her chest; but the grass screeching against her scraped knees, the tightness of the hug, did not lie.

They were out of Cryptic Castle.

Slowly, her body remembered the motion. "Cream." She gently pulled the rabbit away. "… What happened?"

"_We warped you out,_" a familiar voice swam out of the confusion. The Black Arm was standing a bit lower down the hill, the light of the white Chaos Emerald outlining his features. Cheese was circling his head like a fly around honey.

Seeing him, in an instant, the fatigue caught up to Amy. In spite of herself, she ran to him. "Thank you!

Thank you," she repeated, more softly this time, letting herself sink in. Outside of Cryptic Castle, she did not need to put up a front anymore. Oh, how she dreamt of finally going home! Taking her shoes off, pacing with naked paws on the kitchen linoleum, but the Black Arm did not indulge her embrace, breaking the illusion. Amy would after wonder if such affection was something entirely foreign to him, or if he purposefully held away his own arms.

Begrudgingly, she moved away. "So… What are you going to do now?"

"_Our mission in Cryptic Castle is over,_" the Black Arm stated, bringing the Chaos Emerald in front of her. "_We will continue our offensive on this planet._"

"You don't have to do that, you know."

He blinked. Amy drew a finger on her lip as if she doubted she had even spoken those words. But the Black Arm cocked his head on the side, eyes squinting in ironic amusement. She pictured the lion in another one of Rob's tales. Tell me why I should spare your life, says the lion to the mouse. And the mouse says–

"I–" No, that's the wrong way to start, Amy corrected. "You don't really want to attack this planet. If you did, why bother helping me? Or Cream?" Her hand reached behind her back to hold the young rabbit's own, as if to make sure of her physical presence.

"_You're nothing but–_"

"A distraction," Amy remembered, consciously closing herself off. "Yeah. But if I'm just that, you wouldn't have saved me from… you know. You could've taken the Chaos Emerald on your own."

"_A witness,_" he corrected. "_To show the world what the Black Arms are capable of._"

"What if I hadn't been here? You didn't need a witness. And I… I know you could've gotten rid of me anytime." It was a hard confession to make to herself. "… But you didn't."

"_You're not a threat._"

_Thanks for kicking me in the grave_, she scolded mentally. "You didn't have to help either. It's not like your invasion will spare us." At last, he offered no counter-argument. So she pressed on: "You actually went out of your way to help. Someone set on invading our world wouldn't do that. They wouldn't care.

"True, I don't know how your kind… works, but I trust you. You won't do that."

"I trust you too," Cream added quietly. Hearing the cheery voice reduced to a guilty whisper, as if in the middle of a scolding, made Amy's heart ache. "… And Cheese trusts you too." The Chao squealed his agreement.

The Black Arm's cheeks dropped in a rare expression of… sorrow? Battling against the perpetual sternness etched onto his kin's face. Amy felt the unsatisfiable urge to hug him again. She–

"_We have to._"

missed that. The memory through Amy. "Shad–"

"_I _have_ to!_"

Two voices snapped outwards as one.

Like melting metal, like poison on her own tongue, the hurt made Amy recoil in fear. What she had said, what she had believed, did not matter against her body's primitive instinct. It was short. It was brutal; it was the reminder of what it really was, and what it was capable of.

The Black Arm closed in. "_You'd be well-advised not to question too much,_" spoke the imperial voice, that Sonic voice, without being entirely Sonic, void of the color that belonged to the hero alone. "_Or we could start to regret that kindness._"

Before she could argue, the Chaos Emerald warped away.

For a moment, Amy remained transfixed on the stuttering phantom where it had once stood. Seconds felt longer than they should, in the silence of her mind; before a foreign touch brushed her skin. She could not know how much of the conversation Cream had perceived, or how much of the telepath's problem, it had been twisted by her own words; but she was reassured by the rabbit's strained smile.

She should have been scared. She was pretty sure that had been his goal–as odd as it could sound, she had grown accustomed to them, death threats and weighless promises.

But she was a Fool.

* * *

_I know he's not evil_, Amy had said, and her soft smile had stuck in Sonic's mind–there was a disarming quality to it, it was a wonder the Black Arm did not succumb. _And if he isn't… That means there must be a way to… negotiate peace, right?_

They still had one or two hours before the shuttle reached the Black Comet. Sonic had elected to take a nap. But no matter how hard he forced himself to think about anything else behind eyelids shut; inevitably, his thoughts returned to it. Him.

He had fought many enemies during his life. One could say his life started when he became the hero, Sonic the Hedgehog. And, usually, his opponents were very straightforward. Eggman saw destruction as a necessary evil, an afterthought, to achieve his goal of world domination. The old monsters he unleashed, like Chaos, or the Biolizard, were only acting out of blind pain. He could stop those. But, this time, it was different. For the Black Arms, this meticulous violence, like the one witnessed in Westopolis, was the end goal. And they seemed to think the planet deserved it.

But why?

Sonic trusted Amy's judgment. On the other hand, should he care? Whatever the Black Arms had suffered from, no one deserved to get their home, their family, ripped away from them–

The throbbing on his side startled him awake.

_It's no use_, the hedgehog thought, slowly extracting himself from the hard mattress. His legs throbbed in protest as he returned to the bow of the shuttle.

He was welcomed by a large view of space. Sonic was unimpressed: the stars lost their charm, once you had seen them too many times. He was more interested in the redhead in the commander's seat. "Knuckles? Whatcha doin' here?" Eggman had programmed the coordinates into the shuttle's autopilot so that neither had to take care of it.

"I don't know," Knuckles shrugged. "Just in case?"

Sonic raised an eyebrow. He never liked the crippling anticipation of imagining something going wrong, and he knew for certain the echidna was as little prudent. "For real?"

"I just wanted to be useful, okay?! I couldn't protect the Master Emerald, I couldn't fight and… Clearly, there are things I can't understand and…"

"Knuckles…" The Guardian dropped his hands over his head in defeat. Sonic chose to avert his eyes, unable to find the words that would comfort the Guardian. In the infinite emptiness of space, his reflection looked back with defeat.

Just in time to see a streak of red cut a horizon through his field of vision.

"Look!"

Knuckles cocked his head under Sonic's open armpit. "What now–" And was silenced by the sight Sonic pointed at. A murder of winged aliens flew next to the shuttle, towards a familiar flying object. They drew an invisible curve around it–he knew that, because he had seen what was its original shape. On the big screen. He had been there, and the memory of the adventure made his mouth twist in disgust.

Why did everything had to go back to this Ark?

"What are they doing there?"

"The Chaos Emerald," Sonic answered, unable to rip his eyes away from the spectacle. He was there, too. Even when he could not distinguish the shapes raiding the station, the thought dawned on him as fact. As evident as the settling stars around. "Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

A low growl escaped Knuckles. "Yeah."

And indeed, as the shuttle drifted through the debris of the Ark, Sonic could start to make out a silhouette on a platform. He did not speak, but the hedgehog's quills spoke for him; a raw, primal fear creeping under his skin. He had been noticed, as well.

_T'would be rude to make him waitin', right?_

"Hey, where are you goin–" Knuckles' voice fell in the open space.

The fall into the Ark's gravity hurt more than he thought it would. At impact, the electric arc surged from the heel; and his body tensed, trying to hide the pain. The Black Arm did not seem to notice. Or care. "Hey. Long time no see!"

"_We remember you,_" he answered charitably. "_You're persistent._"

"That's what I'm told," Sonic boasted. The lines on the Black Arm's face betrayed no amusement whatsoever. The hedgehog tried a tentative step forward. "But I'm not here to fight ya."

Immediately, the alien side-stepped, keeping the distance intact, shoulders forward. "_You defeated our Black Bull. You should be prouder._"

Remembering the one-eyed titan made Sonic's mouth swell. "… Yeah, sorry, but ya started it."

"_The Black Bull served our purpose,_" he dismissed. "_Your resistance is only delaying the inevitable._" One arm opened on the ruins of the colony. All that junk used to be part of a glorious past, when the Ark was whole, when the Ark was still–

A jolt of memory stopped Sonic's breathing. "The Eclipse Cannon…!" He tried to reach.

In the motion, the Black Arm dropped off.

It took one singular second for Sonic to register, as half his body fell forward in the empty spot left before him. The hand he had offered grazed the flooring, and his foot hung over his head. His body turned around itself, and the realization bubbled to his ear:

_Oh, yeah, the gravity switches._

Falling upwards, Sonic caught the Black Arm, setting himself securely on another platform. He could not decipher his expression, before his head turned around and went.

The hedgehog's legs took the shock of the impact. His hand came under to keep his balance, and he found under his finger a familiar red hull.

"Thanks, Knuckles!" Sonic could not hear the echidna's answer, but he could easily imagine, just seeing his mouth move helplessly behind the window, hey, why are you kicking butts without me. He motioned him to stay at that level and not try to go further into the Ark–and had no time to check for understanding. He jumped to a neighboring platform.

And ran.

He ran, and that was the kind of run he loved the most. When his entire being was being consumed by the elements, when the oxygen exploded inside his lungs, when the stars fell at the edge of his vision, unable to catch up. And when he was burning, burning away, not thinking–there was nothing to compare to this salvatory self-destruction.

Sonic would almost forget why he started running in the first place. But it remained on the horizon, thin as a needle. Eggman had already given them a taste of what the Eclipse Cannon could do, and Eggman never even had the intention of _using_ it, really.

The Black Arm soon rejoined at his level. Though he was the one who had decided to be chased, it seemed he did not share the hedgehog's love for spontaneous combustion. "_You know its name,_" he remarked.

"I've kinda been here before."

"_You know this place,_" he repeated, and Sonic found odd hearing the echo of his own voice with a confusion he never had felt. "_And yet you still want to protect this planet._"

"If ya wanna ask me somethin', spit it. Watch out!"

Another gravity switch pulled their bodies forward, catching the Black Arm off-guard. Sonic did not get to see where he fell; the pull of a railway pushed him down. His inner ear started to hurt, as did the damaged side of his body, but he could not let this mediocre pain rob from him any second.

He slipped off the rail, letting gravity pull him against a platform to his left. He reevaluated the distance. From this position, he could not see what would save him, if he were to jump off.

The Black Arm came back over him, one of the bat-like creatures under him. "_Why do you protect them?_"

"That's what people do," Sonic answered earnestly, carefully waiting for any subtle change in the alien's expression. In spite of adrenaline running on high, he had to carefully choose his words. "Helpin'. What about ya?"

"_What?_"

Sonic made a leap of faith over the edge. It seemed that time slowed down. He watched the stars stop their mad swirling, reclaiming their grasp on matter. Tasted the coldness of space plucking through his lips. He had to hope the Black Arm would save him–whether he succeeded in breaking through the facade, or just entertaining hope in that sick game. If he did not, if the hero's instinct was wrong, well… The hedgehog closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.

At the last moment, he felt his limbs shift. Sonic could not hold in a sigh. The hardest part had yet to come.

The Black Arm let himself fall from his mount far from him. The hedgehog's eyes followed the long line separating them–what may have been a landing runway. "_What are you getting at?_"

"Well, a lil' pink hedgehog told me about ya. Thanks for helpin' her out, by the by."

The pupilless eyes squinted in remembrance. "_A lapse in judgment._"

"Anyway," Sonic dragged, holding in not to take the bait. "I thought we could start this over. Hi, I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!" He extended a hand to bridge the distance. He was not too surprised that the Black Arm did not walk forward.

"Amy told me already," he confessed helpfully, "but I'd rather hear it from ya. That's kinda how those things go."

"… _Shadow._"

Sonic had grown used to the low, slithering voice he used; so he struggled to recognize this one, to catch it before it got lost among the dying lights. Clearly, it was a big deal for the Black Arm. "Nice to meet ya, Shadow!"

He did not let him savor it. "_You're testing our patience, Sonic the Hedgehog._"

Sonic let his arm drop back to his side. "So, why do you want to destroy us so bad? That didn't seem like your thin'."

"_We–"_

"Nah," the hedgehog interrupted, consciously raising his mental walls, "why does Shadow wanna destroy us so bad?"

A low snort escaped the Black Arm–Sonic recognized it as a sorry attempt at laughter. "_You believe it makes a difference?_"

"It doesn't?" The hedgehog tried a step forward. The Black Arm flinched away. In the corner of his eyes, the murder of flying aliens circled out; but he did not try to linger on what could translate their behavior, as if looking away would break the spell. "You're different, Shadow. I dunno why, but you are. And you can stop this."

_(Shadow.)_

_What was that?_

"_Shut up,_" the Black Arm growled–physically growled, as it were, as Sonic did his best not to react to the mental tendrils squirming and grasping under his skin like some starved animal. "_Whatever Shadow wanted is irrelevant._"

The hedgehog swallowed, giving in another step. "Ya know, I'm not super-smart, but I've been thinkin'. Whatever's your deal–" and his arms swept over the stars surrounding the Ark, once bearing of utopias for the world– "it's not gonna fix it."

_(please, Shadow.)_

"_Shut up!_"

Amy, even if she had tried, could not have accurately translated the feelings she had had, even if they were hers, or of that phantom memory her mind had unwillingly stolen. But Sonic supposed that was exactly how it had felt: like the hot snap of a whip. He wavered. It was only his own stubbornness, unwilling to lose what little steps he had gained, that prevented him from falling back entirely.

The Black Arm himself recoiled away, holding his head between his claws. "_They deserve it!_"

Sonic smiled–a bitter smile. "Tell me more."

A strangled noise escaped Shadow. "_They don't… deserve your kindness._"

Sonic made one last step forward. The Black Arm writhed away from the touch. "Let me help ya. And then, ya help me stop this whole mess–"

That was when Their light hollowed them.

* * *

_A quick author's note to thank you for reading so far! 3_


End file.
